Spares.

There wasn't exactly a great deal of free time, for either of them. After all, the whole save-the-world thing was more or less a full-time concern at that moment, which was only compounded by the fact that they were a little bit on the run from Azula while also trying to stick around one place long enough for Mai to learn earthbending properly, and on top of that there was the ever-present concern that Zuzu might show up and start being all awkward and confrontational again (although he hadn't shown up since the events at the North Pole. Sokka was starting to get concerned for the guy's health- after all, if he died, then Sokka had been saving up all his awesome quips for nothing).

Add to this tottering pile of responsibilities the fact that there was quite literally no privacy anywhere within a hundred feet of a conscious Toph (not that it was her fault, but she wasn't exactly the type to just put up with it and pretend she couldn't sense anything), and Mai and Sokka were beginning to discover that perhaps their situation was not conducive to keeping a fledging relationship going.

Of course, seeing as Mai and Sokka were two of the most stubborn, belligerent, and, frankly, bloody-minded people in the world, they both independently decided that their disastrous timing was nothing more than an opportunity to keep things interesting. Sokka was out to spite the Universe, and Mai was of the opinion that if she was going to do something, then it was going to be done better than anyone else had done it in history.

So they stole time. It might be a few minutes alone at the end of a long day of running away, just sitting in quiet enjoyment of each other's company. Sometimes they managed something a little more elaborate, but it was some weeks before they actually managed to get a full evening just to themselves.

Definitely not one of Sokka's Top Ten Most Relaxing Evenings ever. He'd thought it might be nice to do something... normal. Just so that Mai had something to contrast their lives against. So he'd aimed for the tried-and-true dinner/entertainment combination- in this case, a small theatre he'd felt pretty pleased with himself for discovering.

So, naturally, The Universe took umbrage at the way Sokka was preening, did a little fiddling, and lo, the restaurant was overcome by a plague of ratroaches, the theatre troupe was composed entirely of people who had apparently never even read the script, let alone rehearsed- and Sokka swore that the lead actually had some kind of seizure on stage- and a drunk man had insisted that Sokka was his Cousin Fang, and as such, owed him quite a lot of money because he had apparently ducked out of painting the man's fence the other week.

Mai hadn't had that much fun in some time.

On the other end of the spectrum was their trip to a poetry recital.

Sokka had thought it was kind of cool. And it was, except for some reason Mai had been glowering the entire time. Which, once Sokka noticed this, brought his mood crashing down as he tried to figure out what was getting her so worked up.

He'd gotten down to wondering if it was because the dress that the current poet was wearing just didn't work with her figure (someone should have told her that big puffy shoulders just looked silly on someone with no kind of shoulders to accentuate) when it suddenly occurred to him that, early in the evening, Mai had been recognised. Not in a dangerous sense- just a patron, who had clearly been travelling, had recognised her from eyewitness accounts, and had asked her if she was, in fact, the Avatar.

And, though she hadn't taken it out on the guy, that had been enough to send Mai careening into a completely awful mood.

At least Sokka had learned not to talk business around her when they were having their alone time.

But the activities themselves were more a distraction than anything else- a way to have something to do with their hands, or to provide something to talk about. The time was what was important. There was so much they both had to do, had to worry about, that any spare moments they could steal away were more precious than Sokka could confidently calculate.

He was pretty pleased that Mai had decided to spend them with him.